


Explain The Relationship

by Badassium1970



Category: Game Grumps, Ninja Sex Party - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Questioning, polyamory discussions, poor communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 05:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14888594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badassium1970/pseuds/Badassium1970
Summary: Brian takes things too far on the livestream and Dan is annoyed. It was never meant to be malicious, Brian's just been having doubts about how Dan feels about him and the nature of their relationship.





	Explain The Relationship

Dan tried to ignore it and pass it off as Brian just trolling everyone. He just wanted to make the livestream interesting for everyone, and he added the challenge after Dan’s wheel spin so it wasn’t even likely that he would get to spin it again. It wasn’t like he couldn’t just lie and say he wasn’t in a relationship and donate more money, but he knew his face would betray him and all the fans would suspect that he was in a relationship and want to know who it was. Dan wasn’t ready for that. Did Brian want that? Is that why he did this? They agreed to keep it private but maybe after a year Brian was getting tired of the secrets. Dan was too but he still wasn’t ready for them to go public.

For the rest of the time he was on the stream he was worrying, and while he didn’t wish that they would raise less money for charity he wished that Vernon would forget to call out when they raised enough money. He also found himself getting more and more pissed off at Brian whenever he mentioned the wheel and everything that was on it, specifically the ‘call the person you’re in a relationship with and ask about your status’ one that he liked to emphasise.

By the time Dan had to leave he was actually glad. He liked hanging out with all his friends and finally meeting Matt after seeing him across the room was nice, but the fear and annoyance he was feeling was beginning to overwhelm him. Livestreams tended to do that to him anyway and he could never stay for long because they took so much out of him for some reason.

He hoped that he would be able to say goodbye to Brian in private before he left but then he saw Brian holding up that goddamn Wheel of Punishment again and he left without thinking twice.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brian saw Dan leaving and quickly excused himself from the stream for a moment but it was too late, Dan was already gone and Brian knew what he had done.

‘Good,’ Brian thought to himself, knowing he was being petty but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Maybe now they could finally talk about things. That could wait though, he had a livestream to help run.

By the time Brian had finished up the livestream Dan was already at the concert and had uploaded a video onto Instagram. Brian smiled, knowing that Dan was enjoying himself but then the anger and frustration he felt began to built and part of him was mad at Dan for going to a concert, but that wasn’t the real reason for his mood.

He didn’t bother waiting to see if Dan was going to stay at his, something that had become a more regular occurrence as of late. Since it was late Dan would probably decide to go back to his own home, or maybe he would meet someone.

Brian tried to push that thought away. They weren’t exclusive, Brian knew that, and he told himself he was okay with it. At the time he had been. The idea of Dan actually dating someone else didn’t really cross his mind and after a month of their relationship, he and Dan hadn’t seen anyone else so he assumed that they just weren’t cut out for polyamory. Then he saw Dan getting very cosy with some women. He didn’t stay long enough to find out anything about her, but he saw Dan kiss her once after taking her out for dinner. After that, he didn’t see her again but guessed that Dan was still in the dating scene and wasn’t going to tell his dates that he was also dating someone else.

The whole thing made Brian feel more insecure than he thought it would and he couldn’t help but think that their relationship may just be an experiment for Dan, to see if he did like men as well as women. Maybe Dan was just too polite to break up with him and figured that if he dated women then it would become clear that he liked women exclusively.

Brian knew he shouldn’t have let things get this bad. He should have talked to Dan before he did something stupid, which was what he did today, possibly, he still didn’t know what the repercussions for that would be. Now that he was home and had calmed down, for the most part, he hoped that Dan would just forget about it.

Brian could hope all he liked but no matter what he was going to wake up to a text from Dan saying that they needed to talk about what happened on the livestream and that he was coming over that afternoon. It was clear that Dan wasn’t in a good mood, but Brian wasn’t going to do anything to try and improve things. This was what he wanted after all. To talk about things.

Throughout the year that they’d been dating Brian had tried to bring up their relationship, but Dan never seemed to want to. Brian got that Dan had a fear of commitment but technically they weren’t committed. They’d decided that they weren’t exclusive, and Brian even said if Dan didn’t want to continue he’d be okay with it.

Brian tried to shrug it off, but after a year his patience was wearing thin. He was willing to take things slow with Dan, but he realises that things could get very messy if they don’t talk about what they are and what they want to be. For the sake of their career and their friendship, he needed to do something. Maybe he hadn’t dealt with the issue as tactfully as he could have but when Dan brushed him off every time he started a conversation Brian had no other choice than to try something a little more drastic. He knew that Dan wouldn’t have to spin the wheel again anyway.

The more time passed the more nervous Brian became. He started to wonder if this had all been worth it. Sure, he wanted to know where he and Dan stood, but he also didn’t want to lose Dan as a romantic partner. Maybe he was in the wrong for being jealous when they had agreed to a polyamorous relationship.

Before Brian could think more about it and come up with a decent excuse for his behaviour on the livestream there was a knock on his door and he knew it was Dan.

“Hey,” Brian greeted Dan, his voice shy even though he had intended to try and come across as if he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Mmm,” Dan replied clearly not interested in formalities and Brian realised how bad things were. Normally if they had an argument Dan would be somewhat loud, he would rarely shout, but he rambled. If Dan was being quiet that meant he was angry.

“Y-you wanted to talk?” Brian mentally cursed himself for stuttering. He wasn’t used to seeing Dan angry, and it was even rarer that Dan’s anger was directed at him. Still, he led Dan to the living room so they could sit and talk about things and he tried to walk with confidence. It didn’t make him feel any better, or any more ready for this conversation, but maybe he had Dan fooled.

“Yeah, I did. What the fuck man?” Dan questioned as he sat, further away from Brian than he normally did. It probably wouldn’t have been noticeable to most people, but Brian noticed. He also noticed the way Dan was almost scowling at him.

“I-I… Honestly, I don’t know,” Brian sighed in defeat. He couldn’t do this. There was too much to lose that he couldn’t risk losing. Was he being selfish? Possibly, but not telling Dan how he truly felt was going to cause him a lot more pain. That didn’t justify any of his actions or thoughts, Brian knew that, but he needed something that made him feel better about what he was doing.

“Bullshit! You know this whole thing between us is a secret and that there was a chance, even if it was a small one, that I’d get that punishment,” Dan tried to remain calm, but if there was one thing he hated it was being lied to, especially by someone who was meant to be his friend. Someone who was usually so honest who had already wronged him.

Brian shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. He didn’t like feeling like this, jealous; afraid; small; and wrong. The fact that Dan hadn’t even said that they were in a relationship, instead degrading it to ‘this thing between us’ made Brian regret his actions even more, and there was no way that he could tell Dan how he really felt.

“Is-is that why? Because we haven’t told anyone about us?” Dan’s voice was a little softer now but Brian knew he couldn’t tell him the truth. It was evident that Dan didn’t see what they had as a relationship. Maybe it was best to end things, but he couldn’t just end things so quickly.

“I just figured you could call some girl whose number you have.” Brian’s tone was cold and he didn’t realise how harsh he sounded until he had finished speaking. He hadn’t even meant to say something like that. Something so bitter.

“It’s not like I could explain the situation to them when we’re fucking live!” Dan exclaimed, exasperated. Yes, he had many female friends but even if he could sneak a text it would be too obvious and he would get called out for it by someone.

“What’s to explain? Just say we’re in a good place, I dunno maybe sex is good or whatever then hang up and explain later.” Brian didn’t mean to sound so annoyed. He wasn’t even irritated at Dan but at himself. It was wrong to take things out on Dan but he couldn’t help it.

“That may be a problem since I’m not with any of those girls and I think they’d make that clear pretty quick!” Dan almost shouted. He didn’t like to shout but he felt very aggravated and didn’t understand why Brian was acting the way he was.

“Well maybe-wait what?” Brian was so busy being frustrated that it took his brain a moment to catch up with what Dan said.

“You’re not dating anyone else?”

Dan looked at Brian, eyes wide and cheeks tinted red.

“N-no, is-is that what this is about?”

Brian hung his head in shame, not saying anything but Dan got the message.

“Bri, I didn’t know you thought I… Okay we need to talk about some things.” Dan shook his head. He had been looking into some stuff about polyamory and knew that sometimes people had a hard time with it, sometimes feeling jealous but they don’t want to say. Since Brian was the one to bring it up Dan assumed that Brian wouldn’t have that problem, which he now realised was wrong of him to assume.

“When we first got together I dated a couple women. It wasn’t anything serious, and I felt bad because I felt like I should tell you, but I also didn’t know how, like I hadn’t done anything like this before and with them things weren’t like us. I realised that pretty quickly,” Dan played with his hands, picking at some dry skin to distract himself from his nerves.

“Oh,” was all Brian could say. It never occurred to him that maybe Dan had been struggling to date because of their relationship.

“I-I’m sorry. If you want to break up, I get that this whole thing can be hard,” Brian refused to look at Dan, instead mentally clearing his coffee table as a way of stopping himself from crying.

“Bri, what are you talking about?” Dan questioned, confused.

“Well if dating women is hard because of us, I don’t-I don’t want to get in the way.”

It hurt so much to say but Brian had to be an adult and end things before they ended up hurting each other more. He couldn’t live with himself if he made Dan resent him.

“I-Bri, look at me.”

Brian didn’t want to but did anyway without thinking. He could never resist Dan.

“I don’t want to date women, or anyone other than you,” Dan stated clearly, feeling his face grow hot as he said the words out loud. It had been something he’d thought about for a while but he wasn’t sure how Brian would react, and he was still dealing with a lot of baggage that came with finding out he might not have been as straight as he thought he was. While Dan wasn’t homophobic it was hard when it was him, especially when he was in his late thirties.

“I-I… Really?” Unable to believe Dan wanted the same thing he did after convincing himself that it wasn’t going to happen and he needed to accept that.

“Of course. I love you Bri.”

“I love you too Danny,” Brian smiled, his eyes glistening with tears. He felt like such an idiot, knowing that this could have all been avoided if they had just spoken sooner. When Dan wrapped his arms around him and held him close Brian couldn’t help but cry.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly through sobs.

Dan gave him a small smile as he played with Brian’s hair.

“It’s okay, we got through it, and we’ll get through anything else. Together.”

“Together,” Brian agreed.

**Author's Note:**

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